And here comes winter

The weekend ended up with me being stuck in the church parking lot, a foot of snow on my car with ice on the windshield, trying to tackle clearing the windshields before too much new snow accumulated on the windshields.Oh, and thanks to the unsightly humor of the snow plow guy, I had to figure a way to break through close to 2 feet of snow surrounding my car like a medieval fortress. The whole time my mind was thinking about a lost weekend of skiing to serve, the reason behind this snowfall, and the possibility of taking Monday off to ski.

But lets step back a little to friday morning....

Waking up that morning to a fresh dusting seemed a surprise to me at the time."That's odd, the snow wasn't supposed to hit yet."Soon enough, I ran upstairs to check the NOAA forecast. The wether had begun to turn in our favor even more. Originally the weather was going to go one way or another: either warmer temperatures and heavier snowfall, or colder temperatures with lighter snowfall. Mother Nature gave up the perfect medium, an Occulted front. An Occulted front is when you have the collision of a high and low pressure front over land.

With an occultation, the cold air mass will dig underneath the warm air mass, forcing it upwards. The forcing of the moisture upwards will cause high amounts of precipitation for the area, and in the case of a cold occulted front, the cold temperatures will mean snow. Lots and lots of snow. 

These weather anomalies are the cause behind the massive dumps in California, and the Sierra Nevadas.
Normally the southwest mountains are warmer and have much more moisture. Often it takes a cold front to hit the region right before a storm system arrives, so they can have their epic conditions. A week ago a colder storm system had hit the region, and some ski areas received as much as 40 inches of snow! The storm also caused snow in much of arizona, nevada, and the midwest. Now it is our turn. The only backlash to an occulted front is the possibility of warmer temperatures. That may become a possibility for later this week, but, knock on wood we've made it good so far. Keep on Praying for snow!

Looks like God has been gracious with this snow. Let's hope the cold weather holds!

The S-Jenk